


The Queen's Button

by SarcasmFish (Alcyonidae)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Childhood, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 07:49:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8278334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcyonidae/pseuds/SarcasmFish
Summary: A young Alistair attempts to make friends with another child in Denerim.  Someday far into the future they'll meet again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've always had this fascination with the possibility that Alistair could have had a chance meeting with the future Warden in childhood.

There was an elf perched on top of one of the lower walls in the city. Her legs swung back and forth, heels thudding against the brick with a dull rhythm. There were many elves in Denerem, but this one was a child like himself. His eyes had tracked her as soon he had escaped the confines of the manor house. Always seeking a possible playmate, Alistair waved up at her, eager energy making the gesture seem almost frantic.

The elf watched him a moment with wide wary eyes, like a cat unsure if it was being lured in for petting or harm. She rose and made her way closer to where he stood, balancing herself on the wall with practiced ease. 

The girl stopped several feet above him, hands on her hips, chin in the air yet looking down her nose at him. A filthy homespun shirt hung down to almost her knees, all but obscuring the pants cut at her skinned knees. The shirt hung off one shoulder, showing a collarbone with the skin stretched over it so tight it looked painful. A warm stale breeze ruffled her cropped hair, shorn with a knife in an unskilled hand. There was no shine to that auburn coloring. Every strand was dull. But her eyes held a spark of life most elves in the city had lost.

“What do you want, shemlen?” She tossed the word with an air that implied she had no idea what it truly meant, but had heard adults use it and made to emulate their tone.

Alistair shifted from foot to foot, the insult sailing past him. “You looked just as bored as me and I thought we maybe could play?” He grinned up at her with his most charming grin, the one that always either got him into trouble or out of it.

She laughed, a hearty, theatrical laugh. “The queen doesn't play.” She grinned down at him, a challenge gleaming in her eyes.

“You're not a queen,” he mumbled, pouty at her unwillingness to jump down and join him.

“I could be a queen!” She lifted her chin again and gazed over her kingdom and subjects, which currently included Alistair and a chicken pecking for errant insects in the yard. 

“Queens don't dress like that.” He spat, pointing up at her. Such barbed words from a child, no thought in their aim. 

She seemed to quail a moment, unsure how to respond when faced with such evidence.

“Maybe I'm in disguise! Maybe I'm trying to see which of my citizens are chivalrous and worthy.”

Alistair perked up. He had been playing at knights long enough to latch onto those words. “I'm chivalrous! And worthy!”

“Oh?” She grinned down at him, a slow predatory thing, pacing back and forth several strides upon the wall. She wore no shoes, but did not even need to look to keep her easy balance. “Prove it.” 

Alistair glanced around him and into his hands, cataloging the possible ways he could prove his worth. He had no sword or armor, not even an enemy to fight. He was unsure he would even be willing to pick a random fight to appease this little queen.

“How?” He finally sputtered back at her.

She stared at him, her pacing bringing her to a stop in front of him. “How about…” She looked him over, as if trying to weigh how much she could get away with. “Give me your coat. Your queen is cold.”

Alistair glanced down at the woolen black coat the Arlessa had forced him into that morning. The echo of her accented voice sounded in his ear, reminding him how he must look proper while in such an influential city. The garment was too small and restricted the movement of his arms. The only reason he had finally accepted it were the little gold buttons with rearing gryphons accenting the pockets. 

He shed the coat with little thought and tossed it up at the elf, almost thrilled at the impending fit the Arlessa would have when he returned without it. The girl caught it inelegantly, pawing it out of the air in surprise, the garment almost hitting her in the face. 

“There you are, majesty!” Alistair beamed up at her, quite pleased with himself. He sketched a deep bow, one he had spied countless times used in court. Not only was he winning the game, but he had also managed to free himself from the miserable fashion piece. 

As he rose from the bow, the girl lowered the jacket from her face in a slow shaky manner, her eyes wide and full of an emotion his young mind could not place. Those stunned eyes said bewildered or shocked, but there was an odd sadness, too. Was he supposed to bargain more? Maybe the coat smelled? But he had only worn it a matter of hours. He finally settled on surprise. She was surprised. Wasn’t it what she had just asked for? Alistair worried he had misinterpreted the rules of this funny little game she was running.

The girl stared down at the coat as he tumbled over the puzzle, one hand running slowly over the material Alistair had called “scratchy” and “itchy” just that morning. She touched it with a reverence that almost startled him. It was just an ugly coat, not a soft sleeping shirt or a pair of worn-in trousers. She cradled it as if it were some shroud once worn by Andraste.

The elf jumped down in front of him, making him step back at her sudden movement. He had assumed her to be a similar age as him, but closer, and not standing atop a wall he noted just how small she was. Elves were naturally smaller than humans, but even for a child this one was tiny. And scraggly. The Arlessa would skin him like a rabbit if he had ever appeared even half as disheveled as this girl. If he had not been so starved for a playmate he might have never noticed her.

She thrust the coat back into his hands, her face a mask of anger Alistair could not place.

“You can have it, really!” He attempted to push it back at her now unsure if this was a new part of the game. The girl scowled and shoved it back at him. No, the game had ended. Typical Alistair. He had messed it up again.

“I can't take that!” Her scowled expression took on a confused, frustrated tint. He gripped the jacket in his hands, desperate to turn the growing argument back into play.

“Why?” he asked, voice soft and unsure. Did he really want to know the reason now?

Her scowl became severe. “Like you pointed out, look how I'm dressed. Anyone with two wits would assume I stole it and beat me for it.”

Alistair winced, dropping his gaze to the heavy coat in his arms. He ran his hand over it with the same sad reverence she had earlier. He found himself no longer thrilled to give it to her because it would anger the Arlessa. Now he could only find sadness and that unwanted lonely feeling that often followed him. He truly wanted her to have it, wanted her to look at it with that awe and excitement again. Maybe she would then look at him in that way? He found he did not want to give her the coat out of pity, but as a gift to one friend from another. Could he call her a friend in the scant few minutes they had spent together? His inexperienced mind wound circles around the problem, only finding failed paths.

He ground his teeth a moment and then tore one of the golden buttons with the rearing gryphon free from the coat and pressed it into her hand. She gasped, both at his sudden grip on her and the gleaming prize left behind.

He turned and ran from the yard before she could speak.


End file.
